Hedgerows in the Lincolnshire countryside near the small village of Aslackby. Photograph: Steven Booth/Alamy
Not everywhere in the world uses hedges. But Britain has about 500,000 km of hedgerow – despite losing half of them since 1945, as industrial scale farming has taken hold here. One of my very earliest memories is being driven through a patchwork, hedged landscape in the middle south west of England. And it was magic.
Hedges are not just fence-equivalents, worth the investment for that alone. They also store carbon, of course, as linear (if metre high) woodland.
“Hedgerows help slow down the runoff of water, guarding against flooding and soil erosion, and act as barriers to help prevent pesticide and fertiliser pollution getting into water supplies. Studies show they can improve the quality of air by helping trap air pollution.
“They are perhaps the largest semi-natural habitat in Britain, refuges for wild plants and corridors for wildlife to move through, often in barren farmland landscapes.” Paul Simons, the Guardian, 18 Aug 2021
For these reasons, the UK Climate Change Committee recommends planting 40& more hedgerows by 2050.
They are only semi-wild, of course, because they are trees manipulated (‘laid’) by humans, and so require effort, and skill. They are very definitely infrastructure.
And magic.
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